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Figfour drytool handle design

By Pete Dollman | 04, May, 2010

So why does Figfour have such small grip rests rather than a more ‘ergo’ style handle?

Figfour was designed primarily as a dry tooling training aid so the focus was on maximising training benefits. Consider how you use a bouldering wall; it’s much ‘easier’ to use the large, positive holds to climb, but nobody ever climbed 8a by training on jugs! The flip side of this is that obviously the tools needed to be positive enough to allow you to complete routes and problems, and hang on in there when the inevitable pump kicks in!

In developing Figfour we tested a wide variety of grip types from large, massively positive triggers to a fat, totally straight shafts (brutal!) and worked with climbers of various levels (M14 cranking pro users to kids club!) to ascertain how they felt to climb with, and we reckon the current design provides a good compromise; they are positive enough that weaker or less experienced climbers, even kids, can cover steep ground with them but small enough to really maximize the benefits of your training.